


The Rest Is Unwritten

by mikkimouse



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Derek is literally cursed, First Kiss, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:23:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse/pseuds/mikkimouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, the werewolf king and queen invited five fairies to the christening of their only son. The fairies bestowed the boy with gifts—beauty, grace, wit, and the most adorable teeth in all the land. </p><p>But before the fifth fairy could give her gift, a wicked fairy from the other Court arrived and cast a terrible curse on the baby prince. He would have a life full of tragedies, she declared, and die young, of a broken heart.</p><p>The king and queen were beside themselves with grief. It was very old, powerful magic, so there was little they could do to break it. However, the fifth fairy had yet to give her gift. The curse could not be broken, she told them, but it could be altered. </p><p>She bestowed upon the prince the gift of perseverance, so that he would never lose his will to live, even in the face of countless tragedies. And when he found the one who would stand by his side and face those tragedies with him without fail, that is when the curse would be broken. Because the fairy knew there was nothing in all the world more powerful than true love. Not even a wicked fairy's curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this prompt](http://devildoll.tumblr.com/post/74404279176/bluemeridian-jerakeenc-so-heres-the). Canon-compliant (mostly) through the end of season 3, except for Allison's death because no.
> 
> If I haven't tagged anything that should be, please let me know.
> 
>  **ETA:** Huge, huge thanks to [DomesticatedChaos](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DomesticatedChaos/pseuds/DomesticatedChaos) for her encouragement and for reading everything I throw at her. :-)

When Derek was little, the only way his mother could get him to go to sleep was to tell him stories. Many he'd forgotten over the years, but there was one she'd told him over and over again, one he'd begged for repeatedly.

"Once upon a time, the werewolf king and queen invited five fairies to the christening of their only son. The fairies bestowed the boy with gifts—beauty, grace, wit, the most adorable teeth in all the land—"

Derek always giggled at that part.

"But before the fifth fairy could give her gift, a wicked fairy from the other Court arrived. She was so angry she hadn't been invited that she cast a terrible curse on the baby prince." His mother smoothed a hand through his hair then. "He would have a life full of tragedies, she declared, and die young, of a broken heart.

"The king and queen were beside themselves with grief. It was very old, powerful magic, you see, so there was little they could do to break it. However, the fifth fairy had yet to give _her_ gift. The curse could not be broken, she told them, but it could be altered.

"She bestowed upon the prince the gift of perseverance, so that he would never lose his will to live, even in the face of countless tragedies. And when he found his true love, the one who would stand by his side and face those tragedies with him without fail, _that_ is when the curse would be broken. Because the fairy knew there was nothing in all the world more powerful than true love. Not even a wicked fairy's curse."

"And then what?" Derek demanded.

His mother kissed him on the forehead and ruffled his hair. "The boy grew up, and he was indeed handsome and graceful and witty, with the most adorable teeth in all the land. He was very happy, loved deeply by his family and friends. And he loved them, too."

"But did he break the curse? Did he find his one true love?" Derek pestered her.

And then his mother always smiled sadly and hugged him close. "I don't know, baby," she said. "His story is still being written."

Every time Derek asked to hear the story, he hoped it had finished being written, and he could finally hear the happy ending. But it never was.

It wasn't until Derek was nine that he realized it wasn't finished because he was the one writing it.

***

He'd thought he'd found his one true love in Paige. Had been sure of it, because how could anything else be that perfect? He'd been so happy, because he'd _found_ it and broken the curse and he was only fifteen.

When his mom found him under the Nemeton, sobbing, newly blue eyes mocking his childish belief that everything would be all right, she'd held him close for a long time, in a way she hadn't since he'd been a kid.

"This is what she meant by cursed, isn't it," Derek finally said. "It's going to hurt like this, keep hurting like this, until..." He couldn't finish.

"Until you find the one who will stand beside you, no matter what," Mom said.

"But what if they die first?" Derek said, stricken. "What if—what if it was Paige, and..."

He hadn't been able to keep talking, and for the first time in his life, his mom hadn't been able to say the words that would make everything all right.

***

Derek searched in earnest after that. He had to find his one true love, had to find them and protect them, because it was the only way to ensure they wouldn't be ripped away by the curse.

Two years after Paige, Kate happened, and Derek learned he had so much more to lose.

***

He and Laura rebuilt a shaky life, clawed a place for themselves in New York. Derek quit looking for his one true love, built a wall around himself that he only let Laura through.

For six years, it worked. Nobody died. He allowed himself to hope again, to think that maybe the curse was, if not broken, contained.

Then Laura went back to Beacon Hills.

The next time Derek saw her, he was burying her body.

***

He tried. He really, really did. Not to find his one true love—Derek was beginning to think _that_ was a road better left untraveled—but to make things better, to show the others how to live in a world where they could be prey just as easily as they were predators, to impress upon them the importance of pack and secrets. He tried to live up to Laura's example, to be the kind of leader his mother would be proud of. If he couldn't break the curse, at least he could honor their memory.

He tried to protect Boyd and Erica and Isaac, lost Boyd and Erica to the Alphas and Isaac to Scott. He tried to protect Scott, tried to protect Stiles, but Scott didn't care about anything but Allison and Stiles wouldn't let himself be protected. Skinny, fragile, _human_ Stiles, armed with a Molotov cocktail or a baseball bat or mountain ash or his Jeep or, more often than not, just some knowledge and his smart mouth. He stood toe-to-toe with Derek, despite the fear Derek could smell coming off him in waves. And he came back, came back, always came back—that was, if Derek could get him to leave at all.

No one had come back for Derek since Laura had died.

***

For a long while, Derek thought it was his grief over losing Erica that made him susceptible to Jennifer. Everything was just getting worse, and he hadn't looked in so long, wasn't even looking...maybe this time, maybe...

He wasn't surprised when she turned out to be the Darach, when it turned out to be the virgin sacrifices that gave her power over him, because really, that was his fucking luck. It was like the curse was working overtime to make up for leaving him alone in New York for six years. He was almost resigned to the knife in his back.

He was surprised, however, when Stiles's face, bright with tears, hurt him more than Jennifer's betrayal.

When Derek finally realized why that was the case, he locked himself in his loft and spent an entire goddamn week talking himself down from a low-level panic attack. It was difficult when, every time his eyes passed a certain spot on the floor, he felt the ghost of Stiles's hand on his shoulder.

***

As if the curse recognized Derek's attachment, it zeroed in on Stiles with the nogitsune.

Derek spent the better part of a month with his heart in his throat, searching for a way to keep Stiles safe while simultaneously dreading the moment that they would have to put him down. He hated every moment he saw that _thing_ that wearing Stiles's face, like a grotesque mask, because it didn't smell or sound or act like Stiles.

If Jennifer had been a knife in the back, this was a razor in his heart, flaying him apart piece by piece.

A shout stayed dormant at the back of his throat, held in check by years of training and sheer boneheaded stubbornness, a tight lump that he never let escape, not even when he was so exhausted his control was worn paper-thin.

_Give him back. For the love of God, please, give him back and take me instead._

It was practically a relief when the prayer was answered and the curse shifted its focus back to Derek. He could deal with torture by hunters, torture by Kate. It was the devil he knew, after all, and he'd endured far worse.

At least Stiles was alive and himself again, and that was all Derek wanted.

***

Derek woke to the rough hum of the Jeep's engine and the sound of the highway whizzing by, the familiar smells of Scott, Stiles, Allison, and Lydia around him. He would have brushed it off as a dream, but he hurt too fucking much for it to be.

He quietly counted his fingers anyway, pressing the tips of them into his jeans.

"He's waking up," Lydia said, her voice close.

Oh. Derek's head was in her lap. That would be why.

Another breath brought him the scent of her perfume, and under it the old, coppery smell of his own blood. God, nobody should be as familiar with the smell of their own blood as Derek was. He was healing, could feel the burn of it in his chest and arms and legs, but it was slower than normal.

Scott scrambled over the front seat to cram himself in a heap in the backseat floorboard.

"Watch the—don't kick the—if you break my shifter, Scott, I swear to God I'll skin your wolfy hide," Stiles bitched from the driver's seat.

For some reason, that did more to reassure Derek that this wasn't a dream than anything else.

"Derek, you okay?" Scott asked, ignoring Stiles completely.

Considering he was neither dead nor chained up, Derek figured "okay" qualified. He gingerly sat up, trying not to jostle any of his wounds. "Where are we?" he asked. His voice sounded like he hadn't used it in years.

"About an hour outside of Beacon Hills," Scott said.

"Forty-five minutes," Stiles corrected.

Derek nodded and looked around the cramped backseat of the Jeep, where he was sandwiched between Allison and Lydia. "How did..." He trailed off, not sure what to ask. Afraid asking would make it a dream.

"We tracked the hunters to Mexico, found where they were keeping you," Scott said. "Things got a little..."

"Crazy?" Allison supplied.

Stiles snorted and Lydia rolled her eyes. Scott grimaced a little, but it looked more sheepish than anything. "Yeah, crazy works. But we made it out."

"With all limbs intact and no international warrants for our arrests," Stiles said. "As far as we know."

"You came for me," Derek said, because he still couldn't wrap his mind around it. He hadn't even allowed himself to _hope_ for it.

"Of course we did." Stiles glanced in the rearview mirror, and Derek caught his eyes. "You didn't really think we'd leave you there, did you?"

Derek didn't know what to say, didn't know how to explain the ache in his chest that had nothing to do with his injuries. So he didn't say anything.

Scott smiled crookedly and patted Derek on the shoulder. "Get some more rest. You look like you're about to pass out. We'll be home soon."

Derek fell back asleep to the sound of the road and the scent of pack.

***

He found out later that he'd been gone for two months, two months during which Beacon Hills had been relatively quiet, or so Scott said. Derek also learned more of the details on the Epic Mexican Werewolf Jailbreak, as Stiles had dubbed it. A jailbreak they had apparently gotten away with scot-free. Considering the curse, Derek didn't believe it for a moment.

"The hunters haven't come back," Derek told Stiles one day, about two weeks after he'd gotten back. "They don't usually give up that easily."

Stiles stuffed a handful of curly fries in his mouth and studiously avoided Derek's eyes. "Huh. How about that?"

Derek raised his eyebrows at the uptick in Stiles's heartbeat. "Something you want to tell me?"

"Nope." He gave Derek a stupidly blinding smile. "Good to have you back, grumpy."

Derek's heart stumbled over itself, and he was seized by the sudden urge to tell Stiles everything: about the curse, how everything horrible in his life could be tracked back to a fairy with a grudge, how some days he _did_ want to give up, how he'd wondered, in his darkest moments, if it would just be better for everyone if he did.

But Stiles didn't deserve to have all that dumped on him, not after all he'd been through. And Stiles would want to help, and Derek just...couldn't do it, couldn't drag Stiles into it even more than he already was.

So Derek took another sip of his coffee and tried to smile. "It's good to be back."

 _With you_ , his treacherous mind added, but at least he kept himself from saying it aloud.

Weeks passed, and things stayed calm. Lacrosse started up again and Derek actually went to the games. He didn't cheer, but it felt shockingly normal, to be sitting in the stands near Mrs. McCall and the sheriff, crammed next to Lydia and Allison and Kira, watching Scott and Stiles play.

No matter how many times Derek opened his eyes, no matter how many times he counted his fingers, it was all still blessedly real.

Of course, _that_ was when Gerard's fucking werewolf bite finally decided to take.

***

"Stiles, go," Derek said, spitting out a mouthful of blood and black goo.

Stiles, predictably, didn't listen to him. "Shit. You're bleeding pretty bad," he said, hands moving steadily over Derek's body, despite the fact that his heart sounded like it was about to tap-dance right out of his chest.

"Stiles, you need to get out of here." Derek didn't even know how he managed to say it. He was tired, so tired, and every part of him was either bleeding or hurting. All he wanted was for Stiles to get somewhere safe, to be somewhere he wouldn't get hurt by the rabid Alpha—of course Gerard had turned straight into an Alpha, why was Derek even surprised?—currently stalking them, but Stiles wasn't fucking budging.

"But you've healed from worse, yeah?" Stiles smiled at him, a half-smile tinged with just as much fear as amusement. "This isn't as bad as the time Peter stabbed you in the chest. Or Kali with the pipe. Or Ennis and the thirty-foot drop onto escalators. Or—"

"Shut up." Derek coughed and spat more blood out of his mouth. The hot, metallic taste made him sick. "Get out of here before he comes back."

"You shut up." Stiles unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water and held it up to Derek's mouth. "Here, drink this."

Derek tried to turn his head away, but he was too weak. It was nothing for Stiles to anchor him and pour the water into his mouth, cold and sweet and welcome. He swallowed greedily, let the water wash away the taste of blood.

Stiles pulled the bottle away and scrubbed his sleeve over Derek's forehead. "Better, right? Come on, let's get you out of here."

Derek looked at the unholy mess of his leg. "You can't carry me."

"I held you up in a pool for two hours; I can get you back to the Jeep." Stiles worked an arm around Derek's shoulders. "Come on, stand up."

Derek shook his head and tried to push Stiles away. "Gerard's coming back—"

"Which is why you need to stop this martyr bullshit and _stand up_ ," Stiles snapped.

Derek grabbed a fistful of Stiles's shirt, used it as leverage to drag himself up to see Stiles's face. It swam in front of his eyes. Shit. He'd lost a lot of blood.

"You can't get us both out of here." Derek focused on making his words come out in the proper order, focused on making Stiles understand. "I'll just slow you down."

"Derek—"

Derek shoved him away. "Get. Back. To. Scott."

"NO!" Stiles thrust his face, beautiful and furious, in front of Derek's blurry vision. "You fucking dumbass, get it through your thick skull! I'm not leaving you! I'm not. I didn't leave you in the pool, I didn't leave you in Mexico, and I'm not leaving you here! If I walk out of here _you are coming with me_. I'm. Not. Leaving. All right? You got me? Scowl if you understand."

Derek scowled, but it had nothing to do with understanding and everything to do with how goddamn _contrary_ Stiles was, all the time, to the detriment of his own health and safety. Derek couldn't protect him like this; they were both sitting ducks in this small room, where their only protection was a wooden door with a deadbolt. It wouldn't be long before Gerard came back to finish them off. To finish _Stiles_ off, and that was the thought that had Derek forcefully pulling himself back together.

He could hear it now, the scrape of claws on concrete, the low rasp of breath, the heavy heartbeat as Gerard stalked them. He could have moved soundlessly, but he wasn't. Because right now, neither Derek nor Stiles was any kind of threat. Scott and the others were on the other side of the damn building, and there was no way they'd be able to get back here in time.

"He's coming," Derek whispered, though why he bothered keeping his voice low, he had no idea; Gerard could probably hear him just as well. "Stiles, _please_ , go. _Please_."

His voice broke on the last word, from desperation and regret and want, from the _need_ to know that Stiles would live, that Stiles was going to be okay. And from the way Stiles's eyes widened in surprise, Derek knew he'd heard it too.

_Dammit._

Long fingers cupped his face, so gentle it hurt. This wasn't them, they weren't gentle or kind with each other; they were assholes, snark and sarcasm and threats interspersed with violence and the occasional lifesaving moment.

It twisted like a knife, how much he wanted to touch Stiles and how he'd never had the right, would never have the right now. Derek had always known he wouldn't have a happy ending, but goddammit, that wasn't what he wanted for Stiles, not for someone who still had so much hope and beauty and potential.

"Derek, look at me."

He couldn't, and at the same time, he couldn't _not_. He met Stiles's golden gaze, unnaturally soft and oddly open.

"The reason you want me to go?" Stiles said, his voice so quiet Derek almost couldn't hear it. "It's the same reason I won't leave."

Derek stared at him. He didn't believe it, couldn't believe Stiles was saying what Derek thought he was saying, but Stiles's heartbeat didn't waver, stayed steady and fast.

And then Stiles kissed him, lips soft and chapped and a little salty. Just a press of his mouth against Derek's, completely chaste, except it was long enough and firm enough that Derek knew he wasn't imagining it. It made him melt and broke his heart, hope and regret twining so tight in his chest Derek thought it might kill him.

He should've pushed Stiles away, tried one more time to get him out of here before Gerard came back. Instead, Derek raised his hand to Stiles's cheek, brushed his thumb over the moles speckled there, winced at the red line of blood connecting them now.

His lungs felt like they were stuck in a vise. The curse stole everything, and the last thing he wanted was for it to take Stiles. "Everyone close to me dies," Derek whispered, fighting to get the words out. "I don't want you to die."

Stiles gave a heart-wrenching chuckle and tipped his forehead to rest it against Derek's. "Same goes. You're stuck with me now. Should've ripped my throat out with your teeth when you had the chance."

"You're insane."

He felt the ghost of Stiles's laugh against his skin. "You love me anyway."

Derek laughed weakly, felt a lump press against his throat. How could he laugh at a time like this, when everything hurt, inside and out, when he didn't know if he had the strength to stand back up, when he was positive he was dying?

Of course, he knew the answer before he even finished the thought. Because of Stiles, it was always Stiles, who drove Derek to madness in nearly every sense of the word and still made him smile, still made him laugh, still reminded him that he wasn't alone.

And then he heard his mother's soft voice at the back of his mind.

_When you find the one who will stand beside you, no matter what, that's when the curse will be broken._

Stiles leaned back and frowned. "Derek...why are you _smoking_?"

"I—" Derek looked down and cut himself off, because he _was_. Thin tendrils of grey smoke curled off his body, leaching the black edge out of his wounds. The mess of his leg burned like someone had stuck it into lava, and his sides, and his chest, and...

Fuck, _fuck_ , that hurt.

Derek fell to the side and roared, trying to writhe away from the heat, but it was everywhere, all over him, burning him from the inside out. All his senses were going haywire like they hadn't since he was a kid; not even the fucking wolfsbane bullet had been this bad. There was too much input—the buzz of electricity, the flickering fluorescent lights, the hiss of smoke, the stench of vomit, the crunch of claws digging into concrete (his or Gerard's, he couldn't tell), a growl, a roar, rapid heartbeats, the smell of fear, Stiles shouting, Stiles cursing, Stiles Stiles _Stiles_...

Derek was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, bounding forward where Stiles was lying prone on the ground, hands covering his head to protect him from the debris now scattered around the room. Derek dropped over him like a cage, claws and fangs out, growling a low threat at anything that dared approach.

What was approaching through a new hole in the wall was Gerard in his Alpha form: gigantic, grey, and nearly hairless, red eyes glowing. Derek took a moment to thank any deity listening that Gerard wasn't human right now; Derek didn't think he could take the gloating monologue that would ensue.

Derek scanned the room, looking for any escape route he and Stiles could reach before Gerard could block them in. The only thing he could see was a half-opened air vent in the ceiling, which looked just big enough for both of them. He hoped.

"Get on my back," Derek ordered.

For once in his damn life, Stiles didn't argue, just scrambled out from under Derek's arms and onto his back. Derek took one arm off the floor to make sure Stiles was anchored in place.

Gerard jumped at them. Derek jumped straight up.

He broke through the vent and managed to haul himself and Stiles halfway into the duct. Derek dug his claws into the metal and held on. "Go, go, go!"

Stiles climbed over him, scrabbling down the duct. "What about—"

"I'm right behind you, I swear," Derek said. "Just go!"

Derek felt teeth grab onto his dangling leg. He kicked blindly, connected with something soft, and Gerard yelped. He dug his other hand into the side of the duct and heaved himself up before Gerard could get a better grip.

Stiles was a few feet in front of him, and didn't start crawling until Derek was completely in the duct. Derek scrabbled after him, but even so, they hadn't gone nearly far enough when he felt the duct shudder and groan with extra weight. Stiles swore.

"Move!" Derek shouted.

Stiles did, and then tumbled out of the duct at the next vent. Derek was a split-second behind him. He hit the concrete and grabbed Stiles off the floor, hefting him onto his back. Derek adjusted his grip on Stiles's legs and ran, out the door and into the hallway just before Gerard crashed through another wall after them. With nothing but a straight corridor between them and the others, Derek broke into a sprint, heedless of nothing but getting Stiles to safety. Even so, he could hear Gerard behind him, getting closer with every step.

Stiles squeezed his shoulders. "Uh, dude, if you can go faster, you should—"

Derek growled and put on a burst of speed. He'd be damned if he lost Stiles now.

He smashed through the door at the other end of the hall, took two steps and leapt over the concrete steps, landing hard in the parking lot. He smelled Scott and the rest of the pack a split second before he saw them, crowded around the cars to their right. Derek skidded on the pavement to change direction, barely keeping himself upright with Stiles's extra weight on him.

Behind him, Derek heard a vicious snarl that was _way_ too close for comfort.

Stiles jerked against him. "Oh, shit."

" _Scott_!" Derek yelled.

Three steps after he yelled, Derek felt two arrows whiz by his face, followed shortly by two more. He didn't pause, didn't even falter in his steps until he was close enough to see Scott, Isaac, and Kira standing protectively in front of Lydia and Allison, who still had her bow raised with another arrow ready to fly.

Derek didn't stop running until he was within the safe circle of the pack, didn't even think about letting go of Stiles when he finally did slow down and turn. Gerard was in the middle of the parking lot, a dark heap with arrows jutting out of him, illuminated by two orange street lights. He wasn't moving.

Stiles slumped against Derek's back, like all the adrenaline in his body had drained at once. "Please, God, tell me he's dead."

Allison loosed the arrow, and Gerard's body jerked when it struck. He made no other move, though. She lowered her bow and let out a long exhale. "He is now."

That was good enough for Derek. He finally relaxed his iron grip on Stiles's legs and let him slide to the ground. He crowded Stiles against the side of the Jeep, checked him for injuries with shaking hands, smelling for blood or infection or—

"Derek," Stiles said quietly, and grabbed his hands. "It's okay. I'm okay. I'm not hurt."

Derek finally looked up, realized he'd checked Stiles over at least three times, but he didn't want to stop, didn't want to take his hands off for fear he'd missed something, for fear Stiles would disappear like everyone else. It was stupid, he knew, but that knowledge just made him cling tighter.

There was so much he wanted to say, so much he had to say. _I've spent my entire life under a curse and I think you just broke it. And you're right, I love you. It terrifies me. I lose everyone I love, and I don't know if I could stand losing you._

All that came out was, " _Stiles_."

***

After they took care of Gerard's body, Derek followed Stiles home, waited on the roof outside until he heard Stiles bid his dad good night and shut the door to his bedroom.

Derek heard the whoosh of the window sliding open, and then Stiles said, "Let me guess, we need to talk."

Even closed windows had been invitations before, so Derek swung down through the window and into Stiles's bedroom. As always, the warm smells of sleep and snacks and soda and teenage boy and Stiles enveloped him like a blanket, easing the tension from his shoulders. Derek wasn't sure _when_ this smell had become so damn comforting. If he'd paid more attention to that, he'd have realized his feelings for Stiles well before he actually had.

Stiles was all jittery movement: pacing, flexing his fingers, popping his knuckles, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Derek wanted to stop him, slow him, calm him somehow, but he didn't know what to say.

"Look, I know confessions of love in the middle of life-threatening situations aren't exactly the best, but I _meant_ it, you asshole," Stiles said, finally breaking the silence that stretched between them. "And if you're coming here to tell me that I'm too young, or that it was adrenaline, or that I didn't know what I was saying, I swear to God I'll skin you with my lacrosse stick."

"I'm cursed," Derek said, and that was not what he'd intended to come out of his mouth at all.

That was the wrong thing to say, because he saw Stiles's face close like he'd slammed a door. "Okay, yeah. I see how it is. You've had shit _tastic_ luck with relationships before now, so of fucking course you're cursed. You can't even be bothered to give it a goddamn _chance_."

Derek wanted to bang his head against the wall. " _Literally_ , you idiot. I have a curse on me. I was cursed as a baby."

Stiles stopped moving and blinked at Derek, gaping at him. "Whoa, wait. Like, curse-curse? A fairy curse? Like Maleficent and Sleeping Beauty kind of shit?"

Oh yes, that's what Derek needed: to have his life compared to a fucking Disney fairy tale. He gritted his teeth and nodded.

"Okay, so." Stiles raked his hand through his hair and started pacing again, but this time it was his thinking pace, not his I'm-restraining-myself-from-murdering-you pace. "So what are the parameters of the curse? What do we need to do to break it?"

Derek swallowed, because this was the hard part. "I think you already did."

Stiles stopped again and stared at Derek. " _What?_ When? Wait." He held up his hand, and Derek swore he could hear the way Stiles's brain clicked the pieces into place. "The smoke. When you started smoking and you healed. Right after I...after we..." His cheeks flushed.

"After you kissed me," Derek supplied.

" _Oh my God_ , am I Prince Charming in this scenario?" Stiles's grin split his face. "Did I save your damsel-y butt with true love's first kiss?"

His glares had never really worked on Stiles, but Derek glared anyway. "I was cursed to live a life full of tragedy, and then die of a broken heart. Since you asked."

The grin disappeared, followed by a dawning horror on Stiles's face. "Oh. Oh, shit. That...is frankly terrifying and also explains a lot." He sank into his desk chair. "Holy _shit_ , dude."

Derek had never talked about this to anyone, not since Laura had died, and even just saying those words couldn't encompass the enormity of what it had been like living with it, the low-level fear that had been sitting at the back of his mind like a thorn for years, wondering what the curse would take from him next.

He shrugged and sat on the edge of Stiles's bed. "Another fairy gave the gift of perseverance," he said softly. "So that I wouldn't lose hope, so I'd keep on getting back up no matter how many fights I lost. And she said," he took a deep breath, "she said when I found my one true love, the one who would stand beside me through all of those tragedies without fail, that's what would break the curse."

Stiles didn't say anything, just kept staring at him with wide eyes, absorbing it all. Derek dropped his gaze to his hands. "I think you broke it. All the times you saved my life, came back for me, didn't leave me, I think..." He trailed off and clenched his fists. "But I don't _know_. I don't know, and you're just seventeen; you don't deserve to have this thrown on you. You should be doing normal teenager things, like college and prom, not worrying about this."

His throat felt tight and swollen, but Derek made himself continue. "It could still take you. And I...I don't know if I could survive that. You're...you are important to me. I—"

For the second time that night, he felt Stiles's fingers on his face, forcing him to lift his gaze. Stiles crouched in front of him, uncharacteristically serious. "Listen. One, do you have any idea how much baggage I have? I mean, for God's sake, I spent _weeks_ under the control of an evil _fox demon_ ," his voice shook, "and nearly killed everyone I care about. It's only sheer _luck_ that I didn't. And that's not even counting everything else that's happened in the past year. So, the whole normal teenager thing? That ship sailed months ago.

"Two, I hate to break it to you, but people die all the time and it doesn't have anything to do with a curse. And if you ask my dad, I _know_ he will tell you he doesn't regret loving my mom for one minute, no matter how much it hurt to lose her." His voice choked off, and Stiles looked away.

"Stiles—"

"Don't interrupt me, I'm not finished." Stiles snapped his eyes back to Derek. "Third, I'll be eighteen in two weeks, so any age arguments are out the window. And lastly, dude, if you're going to say you love me, you're going to say it to my fucking face. Because I love you too, and I'm not going anywhere," he said fiercely. "You understand me? I'm not leaving you. We already went over that, and I am not going to let some fucking fairy with a bad attitude ruin it."

Derek couldn't speak. There were a thousand different things to say, but all of them paled next to the point Stiles was making.

Stiles wanted this, wanted him. Was Derek willing to take that risk?

He stood, pulling Stiles up with him. Stiles just held his gaze, eyes earnest but a little uncertain, lips barely parted, breath gusting unsteadily along with his rabbit-quick pulse.

God, Derek was so stupidly in love with him.

He cupped Stiles's face and closed the last bit of distance between their mouths.

Derek didn't know what to expect. Maybe a jolt of electricity through his veins, or an explosion of light between them. Instead, something warm and fond uncurled in his chest, matching the warmth and softness of Stiles's mouth on his. It felt like they'd been doing this forever, the way Stiles opened his mouth for Derek, the soft sigh that escaped when he did. It made the warmth in his chest bloom brighter, and all Derek wanted to do was hold onto this moment for the rest of his life.

He broke the kiss, pulled back just far enough to whisper, "I love you."

Stiles beamed, his whole face lighting up with the force of it. Derek wanted to see that every day for the rest of his life.

He kissed Stiles again, and for the first time in nearly seven years, it felt like he'd come home.


	2. Epilogue

_Ten years later..._

"...and so the young wolf prince did endure countless tragedies. He was beaten and betrayed and lost all of his family. But then he met a young bitten werewolf and his best friend, a human boy. Our wolf did _not like_ the human. He growled at him, and threatened him, and occasionally slammed him into walls and steering wheels—"

Derek sighed. Stiles was occasionally a little too gleeful about adding that part in. 

"—but the boy never backed down. And they helped each other, saved each other's life countless times. Each protected the other from evil hunters and scary snake monsters. The boy refused to leave the prince alone, even when the prince was being a guilt-ridden, self-sacrificing martyr—"

"What does that mean, Daddy?" Jake's tiny voice piped up from the bedroom. 

"It means the prince threw himself into lots of fights without considering how _upset_ the boy would get when he got hurt," Stiles explained archly. "Because unbeknownst to the prince, the boy had fallen in love with him. And unbeknownst to the boy, the prince had fallen in love with him as well. 

"Then one day, an evil Alpha werewolf cornered them both, and the prince tried to get the boy to leave, to go back to the pack where it was safe. But the boy refused to go, and confessed his love to the prince and sealed it with a kiss. And with _that_ , the curse was finally broken, and they defeated the evil Alpha werewolf."

Derek stood and made his way to their kids' bedroom, where Stiles was sitting on the edge of Jake's bed, in the midst of the story. Jake was still watching rapturously, but Claudia was sound asleep in her own bed.

"Three years later, after an appropriate amount of dating so that the boy's father would not get angry at the prince, the human boy and the werewolf prince were married," Stiles continued. "And they bought a nice house in the suburbs—"

Derek rolled his eyes. Beacon Hills didn't have any damn suburbs.

"—and had two _beautiful_ children." Stiles grinned and ruffled Jake's hair. "The end, now go to bed." 

"That's not the _end_ ," Jake whined. "You're supposed to end it with 'and they lived happily ever after.'"

"And they lived happily ever after," Derek repeated dutifully, jolting both Jake and Stiles into looking at him. He raised an eyebrow at Jake. "Now go to bed."

Jake pouted, but flopped under the covers and didn't protest when Derek and Stiles both gave him good night kisses and turned out the lights. 

As soon as they were in their own room, Stiles crowded him against the wall and kissed him soundly. "So they lived happily ever after, huh?" 

Derek rested his hands on Stiles's hips and pulled him closer. "So far, so good. But their story's still being written." 

"Awesome." Stiles grinned. "Let's write a sex scene."

Derek laughed and let himself be dragged to the bed. Ten years, and the curse hadn't come back. Their story was still being written, day by day, year by year. 

He couldn't wait to write the rest.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [mad-madam-m](http://mad-madam-m.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come say hi! :-)


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